I like Lifehacker. I love finding something new about something you thought there was nothing new left to find out about.
This is useful: Resize All Columns to Fit Text with a Simple Keyboard Shortcut
And this is fun: Watch a Demonstration of the World’s Fastest Shoelace Knot
It seems like everyone is blogging or writing articles about social networking or cloud computing. I think I’ll try to avoid that unless absolutely necessary.
I’m not belittling those technologies. Social networking sites attract hordes of participants. And cloud computing, yet another reshuffling of computer capabilities to reduce costs and increase efficiencies, has many interesting ramifications including cost of computation and loss of privacy.
I’ll make a wish for fewer “it’s the next big thing” or “it’s here now” columns, and wish instead for more substance.
On the bright side: when a trend starts to annoy me, that may be an indication it is nearly over.
Apple’s product designs are often revolutionary. But not infallible. And they often seem to be in denial. The recent iPhone 4 antenna performance thing is a good example.
Another is the Magic Mouse. I’ve often thought Apple has done a great disservice to the general public by dumbing down computer interaction. Apple early on decided that any more than one mouse button was too confusing for computer users. Now the Magic Mouse lets people right click or simulate a middle-mouse scroll wheel using its multi-touch surface (which is very cool). It looks to me like they are conceding that multiple mouse buttons actually are useful, while trying to deny it by appearance. Usability issues aside, Apple remains tops in product design.
Word Warp is another of my favorite iPhone word games. (I currently just have the free version, which shows ads between rounds.) It is a simple word scramble where you attempt to form all the words you can from a set of 6 letters.
In each round you are presented with a sequence of letter tiles. You tap them to form words. If you can find the word that uses all 6 tiles, you advance to the next round. If not, Game Over. Your score for each round is based on the number of words you create.
If you are just not seeing the word, you can hit the WARP button to resequence the tiles, which may or may not help.
The game is simple but addictive. Some of the sounds are a bit annoying, so you might prefer playing it with the sound turned off.
I like word games, and the iPhone is a great place to play them. You might have just a couple of minutes while you wait for the bus, or for a meeting, and a quick word game can fill the time with an activity that keeps your mind active without immersing you too deeply in anything.
Wurdle is one of my favorites. It is a Boggle-type game, where you form words by tracing your finger over adjacent tiles. After the timer runs out, it shows you all the words you could have gotten. It scores you based on number of words and word length. My own personal scoring method is: if you get more than 50% of the possible words, you win. I have won once.
During my last Japan visit, my good friend Tomo showed me how to take an iPhone screenshot:
The screenshot is saved in your Camera Roll. From there you can email it, or sync it over to your main computer.
I’m still new to this, so I’m relying on some automation to tell me what is and is not blog spam. If your comment is generic, your URL looks commercial, and your email address looks odd, it will likely not see the light of day. If your comment does not get through, let me know that you are a real human and not a spambot.
If you are human, you might find this article about CAPTCHA interesting.
Still coming online. Appearance and features subject to change. Suggestions welcomed.
[Remember when the web was young, and lots of websites had the little yellow "Under Construction" sign? When was the last time you ran into one of those?]
I’m starting a blog now. Everyone else has probably already migrated to twitterspace and beyond. I have two reasons:
Beyond that, I’m curious about how long it will take for people to find their way here, whether anyone visits regularly, and whether anyone else finds anything of use. I also wonder how much work it will be to maintain it, and how it will evolve.